By Godfred Aaneamenga Polkuu
Navrongo (U/E), Sept. 30, GNA – Dr Fiona Braka, the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative to Ghana, has called for stronger collaboration with research institutions to generate evidence for effective health policies and programmes.
Dr Braka made the call during a familiarisation visit to the Upper East Region, where she engaged the management and staff of the Navrongo Health Research Centre (NHRC) to better understand the region’s healthcare delivery system and explore areas for deeper collaboration.
She said the visit, her first to the region since assuming office in Ghana about a year and four months ago, was intended to help the WHO understand the region’s unique context and align its support accordingly.
“We recognise that all regions are unique in the way that they are set up. So, to get a good understanding of the contextual issues and really to see how we are positioning our support as the World Health Organization,” she said.
Dr Braka said the WHO’s mandate was to promote health and ensure that everyone, regardless of location or status, attained the highest possible standard of health.
She noted that research and evidence were central to the WHO’s work, particularly in developing policies, standards and guidelines to guide healthcare delivery.
“To be able to give those policies, standards and guidelines, we have to make sure that they are evidence-based, that whatever guidance we give is backed by evidence,” she said.
Dr Braka commended the contribution of academia and research institutions to Ghana’s health sector, citing previous collaboration with the institution on research into childhood vaccines, including pneumococcal and meningococcal vaccines.
She said the WHO was keen to strengthen such partnerships to generate evidence to guide the introduction and optimization of health interventions.
The WHO Country Representative stressed that evidence-based decision-making had become increasingly important as resources for healthcare continued to become scarce.
“We have to be effective and we have to be efficient in how we are using the resources that we have which are more becoming scarce. And so, in those conversations, evidence and research is extremely important to guide investments,” she said.
Dr Braka thanked the Upper East Regional Health Directorate and its leadership for facilitating the engagement and expressed optimism about deepening collaboration to ensure that health programmes remained responsive to emerging needs.
Dr Patrick Odum Ansah, the Director of the NHRC, highlighted the centre’s four-decade contribution to health research and public health in Ghana.
He said the centre was established in 1988 from an initiative to use vitamin A supplementation to improve infant health and had since conducted groundbreaking research that influenced public health policies and interventions in Ghana and beyond.
Dr Ansah said the centre, absorbed into the Ministry of Health in 1992, became the first research centre under the Ghana Health Service’s Research and Development Division, followed by the Kintampo and Dodowa centres.
He said the NHRC’s operational area covered the Upper East, North East, Upper West, Savannah and Northern regions, representing more than 40 per cent of the country’s land mass and about 20 per cent of its population.
“Population here is widely dispersed and has its own challenges in administering health interventions,” he said.
Dr Ansah said the centre currently had about 208,000 people under surveillance and was working to establish satellite sites across the five regions to improve geographical coverage.
The WHO Country Representative was accompanied by Dr Zakariah Adam, the Acting Regional Deputy Director of Public Health, Ghana Health Service, Dr Michael Rockson Adjei, Medical Officer, Immunization, WHO and Mr Christopher Tamal, Technical Officer Public Health Emergencies, WHO.
GNA
Edited by Caesar Abagali/Benjamin Mensah
Reporter: Godfred Aaneamenga Polkuu
Reporter’s email: [email protected]